He sat by the window, kissing the wind, and speaking to it: “Would it really be that hard for you? Fly through her window for an instant, touch her lips. Give Guljan my kiss and my whisper, tell her that I have not forgotten her, that I will save her!” The wind flew on. Hodja Nasreddin remained alone with his anguish.
Daylight would come, and with it the usual worries and troubles. He would have to go to the grand hall again, wait for the emir’s entrance, hear the obsequious words of the courtiers, guess at Bakhtiyar’s cunning schemes and catch his glances, full of hidden venom. Then he had to prostrate himself before the emir, praise him, spend long hours alone with him, staring at his puffy, wrinkled face with concealed disgust, pay close attention to his foolish words, explain the position of the stars to him. Hodja Nasreddin was so tired and disgusted with it all that he even stopped inventing new excuses for the emir, explaining everything – the emir’s headache, the drought in the fields, the rising costs of grain – with the same words, referring to the same stars.
“The stars Sad-ad-Zabikh,” he spoke in a bored voice, “stand in opposition to the constellation of Aquarius, while the planet Mercury is positioned to the left of the constellation of Scorpio. This explains the sovereign’s insomnia last night.”
“The stars Sad-ad-Zabikh stand in opposition to the planet Mercury, while… I will have to remember this. Say it again, Hussein Huslia.”
The emir had absolutely no memory. The next day, the conversation began anew:
“The plague of cattle in the mountainous regions can be explained, o great emir, by the fact that the stars Sad-ad-Zabikh stand in union with the constellation of Aquarius, while the planet Mercury stands in opposition to the constellation of Scorpio.”
“I see, the stars Sad-ad-Zabikh,” the emir spoke. “I will have to remember this.”
“Almighty Allah, how dumb he is!” Hodja Nasreddin thought wearily. “He is even dumber than the caliph of Baghdad! How tired I am of him! How long until I can escape from this place?”
And the emir would speak again:
“There is complete peace and calm in our country right now, Hussein Huslia. And there are no news about that miscreant, Hodja Nasreddin. Where could he have gone, and why does he remain silent? Explain it to us, Hussein Huslia.”
“O almighty ruler, center of the universe! The stars Sad-ad-Zabikh…” Hodja Nasreddin began in a bored, drawling voice, and repeated everything he had already said many times before. “And moreover, o great emir, this miscreant Hodja Nasreddin has been to Baghdad and has certainly heard of my wisdom. When he learned that I had come to Bukhara, he hid in fear and trepidation, for he knows that I could easily capture him.”
“Capture! That would be very good! But how do you intend to capture him?”
“I will wait for a favorable arrangement of the stars Sad-ad-Zabikh with the planet Jupiter.”
“The planet Jupiter,” the emir repeated. “I will have to remember that. Do you know, Hussein Huslia, of the wise thought that visited us last night? We thought that we should expel Bakhtiyar from his post and make you the grand vizier.”
And Hodja Nasreddin had to prostrate himself before the emir, praise and thank him, and then explain that the vizier could not be changed at this time, for the stars Sad-ad-Zabikh did not favor it. “Escape, escape this place as soon as possible!” Hodja Nasreddin exclaimed mentally.
Thus Hodja Nasreddin led a joyless, anguished existence in the palace as he waited for an opportune moment. He was drawn to the bazaar, to the crowds, to the chaikhanas, into the smoky cookhouses. He would have given up all the emir’s delicacies for a single bowl of spicy mutton stew with onions, for the sinew and gristle in a cheap bazaar pilaf. He would have traded his brocade robe for rags if he could only hear simple, artless words and sincere laughter from the heart instead of praises and exaltations.
But fate continued to test Hodja Nasreddin and did not send him a favorable opportunity. Meanwhile the emir kept asking more and more frequently when the stars would at last permit his regal hand to lift the veil of his new concubine.
Chapter 28
One day, the emir summoned the Baghdad sage at an unusual hour. It was very early, and the entire palace was asleep and quiet save for the splashing of the fountains, the cooing of doves, and the rustling of their wings. “Why does he need me?” Hodja Nasreddin wondered as he ascended the jasper staircase leading to the emir’s bedroom.
Bakhtiyar slinked out of the bedroom to meet him, silent as a shadow. They exchanged greetings. Hodja Nasreddin pricked up his ears, sensing a trap.
Inside the bedroom, Hodja Nasreddin found the head eunuch. His Great Chasteness was moaning pitifully as he lay prostrate before the emir’s bed, while the pieces of a palm tree cane, embellished with gold, were scattered nearby on the carpet.
Heavy velvet curtains separated the bedroom from the fresh morning breeze, from the rays of the sun and the twittering of the birds. The room was lit by the dull flame of a lamp, which, though it was made of solid gold, stank and fumed not a whit less than an ordinary clay one. An ornate censer gave off smoke in the corner, exuding spicy, sweet fragrance, which was nevertheless powerless to drown out the sooty smell of sheep tallow. The air in the bedroom was so thick that Hodja Nasreddin felt a tickling sensation in his nose and throat.
The emir was sitting on the bed, his hairy legs sticking out from under his silk blanket. Hodja Nasreddin noticed that the soles of the ruler’s feet were dark yellow, as if he smoked them every now and again over his Indian censer.
“Hussein Huslia, we are extremely upset,” said the emir. “Our head eunuch, who you see before you, is to blame for this.”
“O great sovereign!” Hodja Nasreddin exclaimed, feeling a chill. “Surely he did not dare?…”
“Oh, no!” the emir waved his hand and wrinkled his face. “How can he dare anything of the sort when we, in our due wisdom, had foreseen everything and taken care of it before appointing him head eunuch? A different matter entirely. We found out today that this scoundrel has criminally neglected his duties and forgotten the great favor we bestowed upon him by placing him on one of the highest posts in the country. Taking advantage of the fact that we have not been visiting our concubines lately, he dared to leave the harem for three days in order to indulge in a destructive vice; namely – the smoking of hashish. And peace was disturbed in the harem, and the calm was disrupted, and our concubines, deprived of supervision, fought amongst each other, scratching faces and tearing out hair, which has caused us, the great emir, a significant loss, for women with scratched faces and torn hair cannot be considered perfect in our eyes. Moreover, another thing transpired which has cast us into sadness and sorrow: our new concubine has fallen ill and has not taken any food for the third day now.”
Hodja Nasreddin perked up. The emir stopped him with a motion of his hand:
“Wait, we have not finished speaking. She is ill and may lose her life. If we had visited her even once, her illness and even her death would not have wounded our heart so much, but now, as you can understand, Hussein Huslia, we are quite, quite upset. This is why we have decided,” the emir continued, raising his voice, “so as not to subject ourselves in the future to sadness and distress, to banish this scoundrel and debaucher from his post, deprive him of all our favors, and give him two hundred lashes. Conversely, o Hussein Huslia, we have decided to extend you a great favor and appoint you to the newly freed post, in other words, the head eunuch of our harem!”